This second set of predominantly twangy and/or keyboards-driven toons concentrates largely on 1962, with just a couple of hands full of goodies left over from 1960/61 which were omitted from Vol.1 due to lack of space. Ultimately, there are far too many artists included here to discuss them all. The Dave Clark Five, Tony Hatch and Barry Gray would go on to become major players in the 60s, while conversely, groups like The Barons, The Phantoms, The Echoes, The Jesters and The Dukes were sadly all destined to languish in obscurity, their legacies restricted to just one or two great tracks. AVAILABLE NOW

When deejay Kenny Everett started playing random dodgy oldies on Capital Radio back in 1977, in search of 'The worst record ever made', he struck a nerve. Every week he'd get a sack of mail from listeners, nominating increasingly bigger stinkers, and the whole shebang quickly mushroomed, taking on a life of its own. The sheer enthusiasm and unsuppressed, manic glee with which Everett pursued his task made for radio gold, and he duly played us some magnificently dire stuff. Eventually, one of the specialist reissue companies, K-Tel, got in on the act and collaborated with Kenny to compile the World's Worst Record Show album, which presented twenty of the biggest clinkers. Pressed up on special yuk-green vinyl, it sold in its truckloads, and even made the UK LP charts.

In among all the Death Discs and other sundry novelty items were some truly gruesome British cover versions of American hits - indeed, it famously featured three of Jess Conrad's, most notably the dreaded 'This Pullover', which gave Jess's then-moribund career (already some fifteen years past its sell-by date) the boost it needed to carry him into the 21st Century! Moreover, for myself and many of my like-minded mates, these were the hidden gems we'd been seeking out for years!

By the late 60s the British Guitar Hero was in the ascendency, and blokes like Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Alvin Lee were being deified. Rock Music was growing progressively louder, hair was flowing, trousers were tightening, and guitar solos were getting longer, flashier, more intricate and increasingly self-indulgent. The Axe Man had indeed come a long way since his humble beginnings, just fifteen years or so earlier, when either a honking sax or a plinking piano invariably took the lead breaks on a 45rpm record (or in those days, 78rpm), rather than an electric guitar. There had been no British 'Guitar Heroes' back in the 50s - indeed, there hadn't really been any young guitarists - and the session men who played on those records were either disgruntled jazz or po-faced dance-band musicians.

Coming along, as it did, almost directly on the heels of Skiffle and Rock & Roll, Trad was perhaps the least likely Pop Music phenomenon of the era. Yet for a brief spell at the end of the 1950s and the very early 1960s, it was massively popular - and not just here in the UK. Many Trad hits sold well internationally, several even making significant inroads into America and Japan, the two biggest record-buying markets at that time. This unique compilation includes virtually every major Trad hit record, collected together for the first time.

Brit-Pop Instros of the immediate pre-Beatles era (for a recap, check out Vol.1, RHGB 21 / Vol.2, RHGB 30). As we have learned, broadly speaking, the "Golden Age" of UK Instrumentals occurred between the late 50s and the early 60s, peaking in 1961 & 62 following the arrival of The Shadows as a chart-topping phenomenon in their own right, before grinding to a halt in 1963 upon the arrival of The Beatles and the ensuant Beat Boom. The tracks on this set are all drawn from this rich seam of Instromania.

Decca Records were formed by financier Sir Edward Lewis, the man who would famously run the company from its inception in 1929, right up until his death, in 1980. Fast-forwarding some twenty-odd years, by the 1950s, Decca was established alongside EMI as one of the UK's two major Majors. Indeed, from a perspective of 'Popular Music', Decca pretty much had the UK market sewn up, their roster including artists like Billy Cotton, Winifred Atwell, Dickie Valentine, Ted Heath, David Whitfield, Lisa Roza, Mantovani, The Stargazers, Joan Regan, Jimmy Young, Cyril Stapleton, ad infinitum, alongside licensed-in American repertoire on their London, Brunswick and Vogue-Coral labels. However, from your average British teenager's perspective, the 50s didn't really get going until 1955, when Bill Haley and his chums made their considerable presence felt. Up until that point, what passed for 'Popular Music' in the UK had remained rooted to a bygone era, still looking and sounding much as it had some fifteen or twenty years earlier.